COLUMBUS, Ohio -
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - NASA surprised John Glenn with the kind of
anniversary gift only a space agency can give, enabling him to
speak live with the International Space Station on Monday as he
marked 50 years since his historic spaceflight.
The former astronaut and senator from Ohio, now 90, became the
first American to orbit the Earth on Feb. 20, 1962, circling it
three times in five hours and helping to lead the nation into
space. He celebrated the anniversary at Ohio State University by
kicking off a forum about NASA's future.
Sitting on stage with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, he
chatted with three space station crew members about space research
and NASA's future. Commander Dan Burbank appeared by video link,
flanked by two flight engineers floating in the zero-gravity
environment, and said the crew was delighted to help commemorate
Glenn's momentous trip.
Glenn was among the top military test pilots presented in 1959
as the Mercury Seven. The only other surviving Mercury astronaut is
Scott Carpenter, who called out the memorable line "Godspeed John
Glenn" moments before the rocket ignited for Glenn's spaceflight.
"Fifty years ago today, Friendship 7 was orbiting planet Earth,
and that helped in a very big way, paved the way for America to
become a space power, and to go to the moon, and to do the things
that we're doing right now on the International Space Station,"
Burbank said. "And we hope this also can help set the stage for us
down the road to do even greater things."
Glenn had a light-hearted but educational exchange with the
space station crew, asking them about the types and number of
experiments on board - more than a hundred, they said - and
explaining to his gravity-bound audience of more than 200 people
that, for example, a candle burns differently in space than on
Earth.
When Bolden asked the astronauts which experiment they'd like to
hand off to Glenn if he could join them, Burbank suggested research
on the "regenerative environmental control systems" on
spacecraft.
"That's a fancy word for our toilet," flight engineer Don
Pettit added. "So he wants to put Sen. Glenn busy fixing the
plumbing up here."
Glenn took the humor in stride, replying: "That's exactly what
I thought I was going to get assigned to."
Glenn also inquired about how far the space station had traveled
during the course of the roughly 15 minutes they'd been talking.
They hadn't kept an eye on the exact distance but said they guessed
it was about one-fourth of the way around the Earth.
Bolden joked that Glenn sometimes bugs him about making a trip
to the space station. Glenn became the oldest person to fly in
space in 1998, at age 77.
He and Annie, his wife of almost seven decades, were scheduled
to cap Monday's anniversary by participating in a student-led
question-and-answer session during an evening gala featuring a
keynote speech by former astronaut Mark Kelly, the commander of the
space shuttle Endeavour's final mission.
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